Friday, December 15, 2017

Because of personal matters I'm cancelling all SBCC Meetups until January 17. I'll post more about why I'm doing this. I expect you'll see my post here by tomorrow (Sat, 12-16) but call me if you need my help. Thanks. John Wren (720)495-4949

Director of Homeland Security Dennis Storemski says “@Nextdoor was instrumental in effectively communicating directly with our neighborhoods throughout #Harvey. Neighbors follow what their other neighbors do in emergencies.” pic.twitter.com/qLmmUFOKXU

Friday, November 24, 2017

Starting a new group is like learning a new medical procedure, just more fun.

A nurse attended an IDEA Cafe Startup Workshop. We usually talk about the value of getting a job in the direction of your dream, to learn from people who are already doing something similar to what you want to do.

"That reminds me of what they taught us in nursing school," she said. "When a new procedure came out we were told to watch one, do one, and then teach one."

To start a new Socrates Cafe, I suggest you attend one, lead one, start one. Or just read Chris Phillips book "Socrates Cafe." That's what I did.

There is a great need here in Denver and across Colorado for new Socrates Cafes. Right now there is one on Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Tuesday evening. Attend one soon, you are very welcome to lead one whenever you want, then start one at a time and place that will word for you. See www.Meetup.com/Socrates-Cafe-Society.

Call me if you have any questions, or post your question here as a comment. If you post, please call to let me know to look for it if I don't answer by the end of the day.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

This very short video explains three concepts that are just common sense. I certainly agree that the use of the 3 words that symbolize the concepts is not encouraged, but the three concepts are behind most of the dialogues we have at Socrates Cafe, it seems to me.

If you'd like to be way ahead of most of us, watch this very short video. We rarely use these three words, epistemology, ontology, and axiology, but you'll see questions raised by the concepts that are very much in our dialogues during our better Socrates Cafe sessions. See

Join us for Socrates Cafe. We pretend we are 4-year-olds, very casual.

Join us this evening or any Saturday at the University of Denver, Tuesdays at Trinity in downtown Denver, or Fridays at Panera in LoDo, 16th and Market. Free and open to everyone, if you want to start a new group at a place and time that will work better for you I'll help you. Best is to attend one first when you are in Denver. Check it out: www.Meetup.com/Socrates-Cafe-Society

Come to this page rather than telephoning me. You set the time, I'll call you back. This way you will never have to deal with waiting or voice mail. Try it, you'll like it! (If you don't please let me know that with your comment below. This is a 14-day trial.) Thanks!

Next week I'd very much like to talk with you about being a participant in a test panel of our new SBCC Method: Recover, Imagine, Think, and Learn; to Start, Grow, and Flourish. For more about the method see www.SmallBizChamber.org

I just announced on Twitter that I intend to run for the Denver School Board after the current elections. This is the Tweet which was also posted on Facebook (where I'm now J Scott Wren, the name I'll use in the school board race when I file the required paperwork). Why J Scott? More later...

Netflix new release "Mind Hunter" is one of the best ways to get in touch with the real worldwide problem we have today, and the only solutions are to lock more people up or to reach out to our neighbors and to be of real help to them.

9. When your next boss comes on the phone say, "(your friend) suggested I call you."

10. Immediately close "(Your friend) thought I could be helpful to you." GET APPOINTMENT.

THIS WORKS EVERY TIME IT HAS EVER BEEN TRIED. JUST DO IT! PLENTY OF JOBS! Make the list, make the first call, get the appointment. When? Now! Or call me for help on writing the scripts, doing a practice call or two, AFTER YOU MAKE THE LIST. (303)861-1447

I'm going to suggest the topic of "Foundations" at Socrates Cafe tonight at DU, next Tuesday at Trinity Church, and Friday at LoDo Panera. Join us? More info on our meetup site about all 3, or let us help you start a new one at a time and place that would work better for you. More info and optional rsvp on our Meetup site, check it out: www.Meetup.com/Socrates-Cafe-Society

For more about the Small Business Chamber and the Startup Show click here.

PLEASE RE-TWEET AND SHARE you never know who wants to start in a new direction with their work and would really appreciate knowing about the free help we offer.

Also, please share it in a personal email to the board members of your local chamber of commerce and the publisher of your local community newspaper, we would be delighted to talk with you or them about how the Small Business Chamber of Commerce can help them start a new Socrates Cafe.

Monday, September 04, 2017

Hurricane Harvey was bad, wait until you see Hurricane Colorado, it will hit us in the 2018 elections, gain power and circle back in a 2020 disaster.

Unfortunately, Propositions 107 and 108 (They were 140 and 98-) both passed.

This morning Facebook reminded me that I'd posted this video a year ago after Propositions 107 and 108 (They were Propositions 140 and 98 until they got enough signatures to get on the ballot, then powerful elitists change numbers when they go on ballot, just one more way they dupe the grassroots, make it harder to stop their Hurricane Colorado) both got enough signatures to make the 2016 ballot.

I couldn't get anyone substantial (meaning rich enough to underwrite a real campaign against 107/108's task force of elitist backers, CEOs, silver spoon trust fund babies who were born on third base and think they hit a triple, tenured poly-Sci professors who hate the grassroots, and the worn-out, cynical party workers who can't stand passing the torch to the younger generation, creatives without a conscious) to oppose the misleading ad blitz, saturation TV ads and direct mail that appealed to young adults with sophisticated, subliminal triggering of memories of red and blue t-shirts and being bullied on the school play ground.

Friday, September 01, 2017

“Mind your own business, work with your own hands.” 1Thessalonians 4:11 KJVPart 1. Tuesday (9-5), Part 2 COMING SOON. I’ll tell you more about this critical turning point in my life, and how I believe it had such a powerful effect me and Randy and my entire family.

Amazon groceries just delivered.

Denver—Next month it will be 52 years since I started violating this rule from Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonians. It is one of the earliest teachings of the Christian church,

“Mind your own business, work with your own hands.” I believe my violation of this rule and Randy’s resulted in his early death a few weeks ago, and it contributed to our father’s very early death in 1979, he was only 54.

Today the Internet and the glorification of celebrity in our western culture has resulted in a nearly universal violation of the principle that threatens to literally destroy the world.How? Let me tell you a story about this:

There were 10 wise and 10 foolish entrepreneurs gathered at their local chamber of commerce waiting for a noon meeting with a venture capitalist. His plane was late.

The foolish entrepreneurs were forced by emergencies to return to their various garage businesses startups they were trying to scale. The wise entrepreneurs had plenty of time to wait because they worked with their own hands and minded their own business.

“Tell the venture capitalist about our business,” pleaded the foolish entrepreneurs. But the wise entrepreneurs refused.

52 years ago I learned a behavior, and I believe Randy did too, that has led us to where we are now, Randy in his grave and me caught in a garage business I’m trying to scale.

I remember that morning, the first Monday after the end of our football season.

It was early. The bright blue cloudless Colorado sky was behind the massive silhouette of Denver Thomas Jefferson High School. I found a parking space and walked up from student parking seeing the bright sky and dark school, a vivid iconic image that I’ve revisited over and over and over since then because of what happened that afternoon.

What I’ve only recently remembered, with help from a good psychodynamic therapist, is there are no other students in the, for me, iconic picture. I was late again. Classes had started.

Amazon just delivered, time to eat breakfast before a jam packed day. Tuesday (9-5), I’ll tell you more about this critical turning point in my life, and how I believe it had such a powerful effect me and Randy and my entire family. (3-2-18 note: the part 2 never happened until today. I'm telling the rest of the story each day, starting today, on Good News Grassroots, see it on https://www.Facebook.com/John.S.Wren

I’ll answer questions posted here or on https://Twitter.com/IDEACafeTweet there with #IDEACafe now or anytime to be part of the conversation.

Wren College Wants a Learning Campus in Every Neighborhood.
“Experience since 9/11 has helped us discover that adults learn best by being the teacher.”

Wren College is a project of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc. It is dedicated to the memory of Randy Wren. For more information call Wren College at (720)495-4949 or see www.WrenCollege.org (link above.)

Randy Wren, John Wren’s younger brother, died from a sudden heart attack July 10, 2017 in the lobby of his apartment building. His full obituary may be seen on the website of the Villager Newspaper or via one of the links to it on www.Facebook.com/RememberingRandyWren

At the reception after his brother’s funeral at Denver’s St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church John Wren said, “Wren College is the culmination of my work of the last 20 years dedicated to the strengthening of the grassroots in business and politics with the support and encouragement of Randy. He and our after-Easter Jesus will be my companions in its over-due launch.

“I will enlist the help and support of each and everyone of the 35 Colorado State Senators in this effort. The first step will be a tour of the state to speak to the grassroots in each of the 35 Senatorial districts, and I hope each of the Senators will join me. Any who are not against Wren College and preserving the memory of Randy will be considered to be with us."

###

John Wren is the founder and President of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc. which works to cooperate with local community newspapers to strengthen the grassroots in business and politics. The group has formed and facilitated free, independent self-directed learning groups since the Friday after 9/11, and it has formed Wren College with the intention of helping other towns and cities to do the same. For more contact Wren www.SmallBizChamber.org or (720)495-4949.

Upon adjournment of the hearing, I invite concerned citizens to gather in the front of Aspen Conference Room to explore the possibility of forming an independent political committee. Why consider such a committee?

If you were disappointed with the pathetic, leaderless 2016 Colorado Caucus, derailed by party big-shots who wanted to get rid of the system that was interested in them, wait until you see what’s going to happen 2018 and 2020 if we don’t take action now.

MisguidedPropositions 107 and 108, pushed through with a multi-million dollar ad campaign with no organized opposition, created this mess, some of it already signed into law 1, gives the means for the two major political parties to be transformed back into the Tammany Hall like the political machine we had in Colorado before1912.

Back then machine political was finally cleaned up and replaced by grassroots control of party leadership by the heroic efforts of the then Governor of Colorado, popular John (“Honest John”) Shafroth. How? With our once wonderful neighborhood Colorado Caucus and other progressive reforms.

If the Colorado Caucus killing Propositions 107 and 108 aren’t reversed by the Legislature or stopped with legal action the expensive Presidential Primary and the open voting in primaries that are created can be expected to kill our Colorado Caucus, the best chance the common person has ever had of having a real voice, will disappear and the Republicans and Democrats bosses will say they were forced to re-hire Boss Tweed.”

Wake up Colorado! Meet me in the Aspen Room at noon Tuesday, right after the election rules hearing.If you have any questions before then call me at (720)495-4949.

###

Footnote 1: “(1)notwithstanding any other provision of law, a political party may choose to change from the nomination of candidates by primary election to the nomination of candidates by assembly or convention for all offices…” Colorado Revised Statutes Title 1 Elections § 1-4-702

Saturday, July 01, 2017

I just got phone call about email message from me that was spam. If that has happened to you, I'm very sorry. I've changed passwords, shouldn't still be a problem. If it is, please let me know right away, ok? Best email, most dependable, is JohnSWren@aol.com

Thanks.

John

(And yes, I know, sometimes I send too many emails, could be said what I send is spam. I'm going to try posting here each day, limiting myself to one email a day that will link to it.)

Tonight (Saturday, 6/30) Socrates Cafe @ DU with a Focus on Science. 6:30 p.m. Anderson Academic Commons, University of Denver. For more info about this and other Socrates Cafes in metro-Denver see https://Meeting.com/Socrates-Cafe-Society

“Just Start,” as described in this video and in more depth in the Harvard Business Review Press book published with this as it’s central theme, can be powerful.

Amar Bhide’s findings from research with Inc 500 founders and then published by Oxford Press (“The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses) strongly make the case for not writing a business plan, not doing market research, not raising money, but rather to do what you can with what you have to get underway quickly with a new business idea.

Cynics point out, Bhide’s research is biased because it only takes into account the survivors of the “leap before you look” approach.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a book review headlined “Cold, Doomed, Hungry;” it reviews the new book “The Best Land Under Heaven,” the tragic story of the Donner family migration to California from Illinois. I suggest you read it, I'm about to post a link to it on our https://Twitter.com/IDEACafeChat

The Donner brothers George and Jacob had read the then popular new book, “Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California” and they took their families on a new route described as much faster and safer. and they stuck with it despite the warning of mountain man James Clyman.

Let’s discuss the philosophy of start and finish.

Right now you can Tweet your comment with #IDEACafe #StartFinish to be part of today’s online conversation. If you are in metro-Denver today or later this week join us this evening (Tue, 6/6) at Trinity Church, Friday at LoDo Panera, or Saturday at the University of Denver where I’ll be suggesting this as the topic. More info about these Socrates Cafe meetings and optional rsvp at https://Meetup.com/Socrates-Cafe-Society

No video session of our IDEA Cafe Chat again today. Hopefully it will get underway soon. First we want to finish a conversation with a mountain man…

Happy birthday, Mike! Hope you'll be with us live here soon at 1881. Just take a minute and click on https://Meetup.com/Small-Biz-Chamber , then rsvp on the IDEA Cafe Chat date that would work best for you, ok?

Friday, June 02, 2017

It occurs to me that to understand what happened next with me and George (see yesterday's post) you need a little bit of background about me. Even if you are in my family there are things you probably don’t know.

First, I believe this little book about startup was divinely inspired. It’s been selling online ever since it first came out and I’ve never had a negative review. Check it out: click or copy and paste into your browser:

Did you have a chance to read yesterday's post? I’m not sure why there were no comments, according to Google it was downloaded over 100 times. Did you see it? I hope you'll share it and this post with any of your friends who are starting in a new direction with their work or who want to make a career change.

I’ll talk more about my background, how my little book came into being, and what all this has to do with happiness on today’s Startup Show. Link to it here at Noon MST (2 p.m. Eastern) or you can watch live or by recording via the same link.

Thursday, June 01, 2017

I was at a very, very low spot in my life 20 years ago. Suicide and/or homocide were definite possibilities. George saved my life and maybe your's too if you knew me back then. This is what he did, the best I can remember.

A friend I'd known for decades introduced me to George, an old guy who was over weight, smoked constantly while he was on oxygen, and who I'd noticed before at a club my friend and I both belonged to and where George was sort of the towel boy.

I'd noticed George because despite his only working part-time at minimum wage, some big health problems, he was always telling stories and laughing at his own jokes. On my own, I would have never asked him for help. But my friend told me George had helped him, and George could maybe help me. I was desperate enough to do almost anything.

My friend left us alone. After telling George my bedevilments he said something that made me mad until I suddenly could see it was true, "Your life is exactly like you want it and you've worked damn hard to get it that way." In other words, George was telling me in so many words, you don't want to be happy.

When I try to say this to people who want my help, they almost always get angry and storm off. But George had a very unique way of saying it with a sparkle in his eye that made me want to laugh. It was also clear that George wanted to help me. So I kept listening.

"You are selfish, dishonest and afraid. You are restless, irritable and discontented. We can talk about the homosexual tendencies later." With this I did laugh out loud, looking at his big grin.

"I was just like that," George said. "I was deliberately manufacturing my own misery. I'm not now. I'm happy, joyous, and free. Yes, I still have problems from time to time. Some days are better than others, but compared to then I'm happy. Do you want to be happy, joyous and free?"

I just stood like the fool that I was, staring at him. It was a hard question. He got firm, the smile went away. "Well do you? If you don't want to be happy, don't let the door hit you on the but on the way out." I told him yes. We made an appointment to meet the next morning.

I'm asking you that same question right now.

Do you want to be happy, joyous, and free? If so, mark your calendar for 10 a.m. tomorrow morning Mountain Daylight Time (noon Eastern) and let's meet back here on www.JohnWren.com This tread will continue, and I'll share more with you about what George shared with me that saved my life.

Please, no online debate. If this makes you angry, if you disagree, make a short comment and link to your URL if you want, but don't fight it out here, ok? If you have similar experience and have positive comments, still keep it on the short side, and limit yourself to no more that two posts here per day, ok?

Finally, if you are desperate and think you are in danger of harming yourself or someone else call 911 and get help immediately.

Monday, May 15, 2017

I'm currently registered Unaffiliated, I didn't vote for President Trump, but I do wish him well in the trip these next few days to visit world leaders concluding with Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome.

Seems to me we should pull together as a country and pray for his success.

He will never be removed from office based on what we know now, and if there was more it would have come out by now. He will be our President for the next 3+ years, let's support him, but be very specific about any action that is objectionable while he is in that office.

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

(Click on "View larger map" below.) Call me, let's meet and talk about how I can help you start, grow, flourish with the SBCC Startup Method. Call me at (720)495-4949. We can talk here, by appointment only:

Friday, April 28, 2017

Would you do me a favor? Click on the above link, go to your favorite bookstore or library, or in some other way get your hands on the book, then call me or send me your thoughts about it, ok?

I read Mitch Horowitz' One Simple Idea and had great respect for the quality of the research, he writing style, and most of all his debunking of the Law of Attraction.

This new book is much different.

Please let me know what you think here, on Facebook, with a telephone call, I'll let you know what I think in part today on our SBCC IDEA Cafe Twitter Chat at 10 a.m. MDT, 11 a.m. Central (where I am now, visiting family in Houston.) Join there in a few minutes for the live chat or post any time, see http://Twitter.com/IDEACafeChat

Why the SBA and It’s SCORE Program Should Be Renamed.by John S. Wren, MBA+

I’ve been interested in how businesses really start, especially the role of the Small Business Administration and it’s many offshoots, for decades.

I studied in the graduate business school at the University of Denver on-campus 1974-5. My research methods paper was a survey of the literature and an index to the advice available for people starting a small business. This was before Inc Magazine and before DU or, as far as I know any college, offered a class about startup or entrepreneurship.

Where I learned the most about how small businesses start, aside from the 20+ years working with my father and his small business owner friends, was in my first job after graduate school.

I had the very good fortune to be hired as Assistant-to-the-President of Outdoor Sports Industries by OSI’s founder and President Richard Olson. It was a chance to be the bosses son again.

One of the very best parts of working with Mr. Olson (we met every week for breakfast to review the projects I was working on such as creating a newsletter for board members, the annual report and board meeting, creating a management training program for our top managers, etc.) was the opportunity to meet and have conversations with people I’d probably never have had a chance to talk with otherwise and to learn some lessons from their direct experience.

Some of the people I got to learn from, aside from our own managers, especially the former owners of the small sporting goods companies OSI had purchased, included: former Governor of Colorado John Love, then President of Ideal Basic Industries, one of the top firms in the country at the time; Supreme Court Justice Byron White who played squash frequently with Mr. Olson; Joe Coors; Astronaut Wally Shira; and on and on.

Since working for OSI I’ve worked with hundreds of business founders as a consultant or as an employee, and that experience led me to start a workshop for people who wanted to start a new business in the early 90’s. Back then we called it The IDEA Association and it’s meetings were announced each week in the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, Westword, the Colorado Statesman, and the Denver Business Journal.

After meeting with a spiritual director at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House in Sedalia, Colorado for years, I wrote a little booklet about startup. This is to me the key section:

The world needs your new business!

To understand my system for starting your new business, it is necessary to first appreciate the nature of business in a capitalistic, free market economy.

The world will always have government, big-business, and big-labor.

Government for those things individuals cannot do for themselves. Big-business and big-labor because of certain efficiencies of scale. Unfortunately, the large scale of these three forms of bureaucratic operations leads to problems:

1) Efficiency comes at the expense of intelligence and creativity. The large organization has a tendency to get better and better at doing what eventually is the wrong thing.

2) Power corrupts. Governmental corruption is kept in check by our process of representative democracy. Big-business corruption is kept in check to the extent that the free market is allowed to operate. That is why big business hates competition.

The worldview of the bureaucrat is necessarily different from that of the entrepreneur. The steps recommended here for starting a new business will not make sense to most bureaucrats.

If you decide to work with a business mentor, it is important that you work with someone who subscribes to the following philosophy of business. This person almost always will be an independent business owner.

Beware of seminars about how to start a new business; the most deadly advice for entrepreneurs comes from bureaucrats, public or private, active or retired.

From my little booklet on startup, “Daring Mighty Things— The Simplest Way to Start Your First (or Next) New Business” available on Amazon (click.)

Ads and Twitter Feeds Here Not Endorsements!

Advertisements on this site are sold by Google, I post things I don't agree with for purposes of discussion, and nothing on this site should be taken as a sign of endorsement by me. If you have any question about this, please call John Wren, (303)861-1447.

John Wren's Daring Mighty Things-- The Simplest Way to Start Your First (or Next) New Business.

Search on Amazon.com John Wren Daring

John Wren is the founder & CEO of Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

click on picture to go to SBCC.

GUEST ON SPECIAL EDITION?

Do you have a compelling story about startup that you'd be willing to share on SPECIAL EDITION The Startup Show?

Here is what we ask you to do to become a guest on the show:

Post a short (one sentence is best) introduction or news about you and your business and link to your URL. Then make sure I consider you as a guest, call me at (303)861-1447 if you don't hear from me in a day or two.

After you've posted your intro, be an active participant on our Facebook Page. http://Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber "Like" and "Share" the Page, comment on what others have posted. Encourage your Facebook friends to do the same. Help make it a 24/7 resource for startups and small business, and you'll help make it a good tool for you to use when you have an announcement.

John Wren (720)495-4949

AMDG + Start + Grow + Flourish.

Ads here does not imply endorsement or approval. SBCC cooperates with local chambers to provide more real help to just start. IDEA Salons & Workshops. For more click on logo or go to .SmallBizChamber.org

John S. Wren, MBA+

Ads here on this site from Google, does not mean they have my endorsement. Want to know my opinion? Call now, let's talk about how I can help you. Contact me now, while it is on your mind, at (720)495-4949

People are talking about the IDEA Cafe:

"like the group and leader a lot."

— Mike O'Neil

"If you need help figuring out what to do next, or not sure where to go or how to approach your business, this is definitely the group for you!"

— Andrea

"John Wren is an inspiration and leader in the Denver Business Community. He truly has a giving spirit sharing his years of varied and successful experience with new (and emerging) business owners. His IDEA cafe is truly a gift!"

-- Susan Roberts,ActionCOACH

Brainstorming?

5280 Magazine on John Wren and IDEA Cafe:

Every Friday for the last 10 years, local business consultant John Wren has infused the city with entrepreneurial spirit by hosting Idea Cafe, a conversation group for anyone starting a new career, business, or campaign.